Altaic languages
Hypothetical language family of Eurasia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Altaic (/ælˈteɪ.ɪk/) is a controversial proposed language family[2] that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages.[3]: 73 The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority.[3][4][5] Speakers of the constituent languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35° N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from the Balkan Peninsula to Japan.[6][better source needed] The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.
This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. (June 2023) |
Altaic | |
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(highly controversial[1]) | |
Geographic distribution | Northern and Central Asia |
Linguistic classification | Proposed as a major language family by some |
Proto-language | Proto-Altaic |
Subdivisions | |
ISO 639-2 / 5 | tut |
Glottolog | None |
(sometimes included)
(sometimes included)
(rarely included) |
The Altaic family was first proposed in the 18th century. It was widely accepted until the 1960s and is still listed in many encyclopedias and handbooks, and references to Altaic as a language family continue to percolate to modern sources through these older sources.[3] Since the 1950s, most comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to have been converging rather than diverging over the centuries.[7][8][9] The relationship between the Altaic languages is now generally accepted to be the result of a sprachbund rather than common ancestry, with the languages showing influence from prolonged contact.[10][11][12]
The continued use of the term "Altaic" to refer to the various iterations of an Altaic theory, for the "Altaic sprachbund", and infrequently as a general term for the region has resulted in confusion around the status of the Altaic hypothesis. As a result, many Altaicists have adopted instead the name "Transeurasian" in relation to modifications of the family proposal, in order to avoid such confusion.[13] This confusion is compounded further by literature that still - contrary to the current scholarly consensus - refers to Altaic as an accepted hypothesis.
Altaic has maintained a limited degree of scholarly support, in contrast to some other early macrofamily proposals. Continued research on Altaic is still being undertaken by a core group of academic linguists, but their research has not found wider support. In particular it has support from the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and remains influential as a substratum of Turanism, where a hypothetical common linguistic ancestor has been used in part as a basis for a multiethnic nationalist movement.[14]